Johns Hopkins physics professor shares in $3 million award

BALTIMORE (AP) — A physics professor at Johns Hopkins University will share in a $3 million prize for his research into the origins of the universe.

The university said in a statement Sunday that Charles L. Bennett led a NASA project that provided the first-ever “baby picture” of the universe.

The scientists revealed key properties of the cosmos by measuring its oldest light. For instance, the universe is 13.8 billion years old. Only five percent of it is made up of atoms. About 70 percent of the universe is dark energy, a kind of anti-gravity that was first introduced by Albert Einstein.

Bennett was named a recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He helmed the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) space mission. The mission’s science team will share the prize.